Former Quaker Joey Slackman during last season's matchup against Columbia on Oct. 14, 2023.
Credit: Anna VazhaeparambilMost collegiate football players dream of one day making the NFL. Sadly, a large number of those dreams never come to fruition. In fact, only 1.6% of NCAA football players will ever play at the professional level.
The NFL Draft is one of the most highly anticipated events for an aspiring professional player – next year's draft is slated to be held in and around Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. In a three-day affair that will see over 260 college players hear their professional dreams come true, former Penn and now Florida Gator defensive lineman Joey Slackman has his eyes set on being the first Quaker to be drafted since Justin Watson was selected in the fifth round in 2018.
Slackman’s confidence isn’t unwarranted. His senior season representing the Red and Blue was one for the history books. After registering a team high 12.0 tackles for loss, four sacks, 50 total tackles, and a blocked field goal, Slackman was named the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, becoming the 10th Quaker, and the first since 2015, to receive the Asa S. Bushnell Cup – an accomplishment that Justin Watson was unable to achieve in 2017 when he was a finalist.
Most recently, Slackman added another accolade to his already extensive resume. Slackman was recently named a second-team Academic All-American by College Sports Communicators due to his successful performances in both the classroom and on the field. With the recognition, Slackman became just the sixth Quaker to earn such honors, and the first in over two decades. The last football student-athlete to earn Academic All-America honors was Mike Germino in 1999.
For a sport that is as time intensive as football is, being able to come out on top both on the field and in the classroom is a hard to achieve feat. To do so, it requires the utmost discipline from the athlete. Slackman, who studied political science in the College of Arts and Sciences, figured out very early on that if he wanted to have the best of both worlds, he would have to really commit to both.
“I had to learn pretty early on in my career at Penn that time management was a really important thing,” said Slackman. “The rigors of the academics forced me to learn those tactics and learn how to budget my time properly. A lot of people have the notion that, you know, coming or playing football or playing any sport in the Ivy League, kind of means that you can't reach your full potential, but I tried to defy the odds. I felt like I did that… just taking care of school as much as I took care of my athletics.”
Unfortunately for Penn, Ivy League protocols prevented Slackman from coming back for a fifth year. After a breakout senior season that saw him being ranked as the third-best interior defensive lineman in all of college football, Slackman’s options for his last chance to bolster his draft stock were never ending. Among his suitors were Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Missouri, Louisville, Arizona, and Southern California. When the dust settled though, Slackman announced his transfer to Florida.
“Players coming from Ivy League usually don't get recruited as highly as I ended up being,” said Slackman. “It was a childhood dream come true to… decide where I wanted to go to play [for] my last year of eligibility and I'm excited that I ended up in Florida.”
This influx of success wasn’t always expected though. Slackman began his collegiate athletic career not on the gridiron but on the mats as a wrestler.
Despite growing up playing football, Slackman decided in his junior year of high school that wrestling provided him with better opportunities at the collegiate level. One of his major considerations in the decision process was the quality of the college’s academics. The early interest in academics foreshadowed his commitment to the classroom as his collegiate career progressed.
After finding initial success on the mats that included positing a 14-4 major decision in a dual meet against then-No. 1 Penn State, Slackman would end up missing most of his freshman season due to injury. When the Covid-19 pandemic put a pause on all athletic events, it gave Slackman the chance to re-evaluate what direction he wanted to take his athletic career. Football had been his first love, and at the end of the day, Slackman was more than ready to take his talents back to the gridiron.
“Transitioning to back to a sport that I hadn't played for almost three years to that point was was definitely hard, but I had the background,” Slackman reflected. “I obviously understood the game. And I knew that I had potential that I hadn't reached yet. [W]as it difficult? Yes. But I was up for the challenge. And I feel like I'm making the most of it.”
Slackman is now currently in Florida, training with the Gators. His focus has turned toward this upcoming season and how he can best prepare himself for the NFL draft process next year. Although he is working to maximize his potential as an athlete, making sure he takes care of his academics is also something that Slackman will be prioritizing.
“My parents always said growing up that they wanted me to strive to achieve everything I wanted to when it came to athletics [and] my academics,” Slackman said. “But that being said, I do really care about football. It's my main focus right now… and I believe that I will make it. I just have to put my mind and body to it and I think this time next year, I'll be given my shot.”
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